Problem: What is $85\%$ of $20$ ?
Having $85\%$ of something means that you get $85$ out of every $100$ We can set up a proportion to find out what number is $85\%$ of $20$ $ \dfrac{{\text{percent}}}{100} = \dfrac{{\text{part}}}{{\text{whole}}}$ Which things do we know, and what are we trying to find? We know the ${\text{percent}}$ is $85$ . Is $20$ the ${\text{part}}$ or the ${\text{whole}}$ The $20$ is the ${\text{whole}}$ . We are trying to find the ${\text{part}}$ that makes up $85\%$ of it: $ \dfrac{{85}}{100} = \dfrac{{\text{part}}}{{20}}$ If we divide the denominator of the fraction on the left by $5$ , it will be the same denominator of the fraction on the right. To keep things equal, let's also divide the numerator on the left by $5$ $ \dfrac{{85} \div 5}{100 \div 5} = \dfrac{{\text{part}}}{{20}}$ $ \dfrac{{17}}{20} = \dfrac{{\text{part}}}{{20}}$ $ {17} = {\text{part}}$ So $17$ is $85\%$ of $20$.